A good beef noodle soup can bring you back from the dead. The combination of full flavoured beef broth, thin slices of beef, flat rice noodles and green onion cut with a squeeze of lemon and brightened with torn basil leaves and crunchy bean shoots is enough to revive the sick, the depraved and the downright hung over.

But before the beef soup we plump for Pho Pasteur’s super-sized spring rolls. Served with half a head of iceberg lettuce and pile of mint, the idea is to wrap the spring roll in the greens then dip in a mix of palm sugar and fi sh sauce and chilli.

The restaurant looks like an old milk bar with mirrored columns running all the way down the restaurant, lime green tiles, plastic plants and very interestingly, Latino music playing in the background. It seems there’s an unspoken line you cross where on one side of the street you’re surrounded by Hi Fi shops, banks and the great looming Westfield shopping centre and on the other are Chinese barbecue restaurants, Japanese bakeries and Vietnamese soup shops.

Soda chanh (lemon soda) is served in plastic old-fashioned milk bar glasses and the pho is the best outta Bankstown. Mixed pho (raw, cooked and beef tendon) has an incredibly rich, flavour packed broth and served, happily, with basil rather than mint – the inferior herb that a lot of pho places are using now because it’s cheaper than basil.

Pho Pasteur may share the same name as the restaurant on George street in the city but it’s light years ahead in terms of food, service and décor. Take us to Parramatta any day for this one.

Readers' comments, reviews, hints and pictures

Food poisoned my wife and me on Sunday, 24 August 2014 Have eaten at Pho Pasteur, 709 George St Haymarket a number of times over the years with no problem. However on Sunday, 24 August 2014 we ordered two rare beef pho and seafood spring rolls. I was violently ill a number of hours later and my wife is still sick and in pain on Wednesday, 27 August 2014. Our GP Doctor confirms food poisoning. I am lodging a complaint with the City of Sydney Council. I note their Bankstown location has been name and shamed by NSW Government Food Authority on more than one occasion - search for yourself to see.

Posted on Thu 28 Aug 2014 00:05:20

tl said:

Food poisoned my wife and me on Sunday, 24 August 2014 Have eaten at Pho Pasteur, 709 George St Haymarket a number of times over the years with no problem. However on Sunday, 24 August 2014 we ordered two rare beef pho and seafood spring rolls. I was violently ill a number of hours later and my wife is still sick and in pain on Wednesday, 27 August 2014. Our GP Doctor confirms food poisoning. I am lodging a complaint with the City of Sydney Council. I note their Bankstown location has been name and shamed by NSW Government Food Authority on more than one occasion - search for yourself to see.

Posted on Thu 28 Aug 2014 00:05:20

tl said:

Food poisoned my wife and me on Sunday, 24 August 2014 Have eaten at Pho Pasteur, 709 George St Haymarket a number of times over the years with no problem. However on Sunday, 24 August 2014 we ordered two rare beef pho and seafood spring rolls. I was violently ill a number of hours later and my wife is still sick and in pain on Wednesday, 27 August 2014. Our GP Doctor confirms food poisoning. I am lodging a complaint with the City of Sydney Council. I note their Bankstown location has been name and shamed by NSW Government Food Authority on more than one occasion - search for yourself to see.

Posted on Thu 28 Aug 2014 00:05:20

tl said:

Food poisoned my wife and me on Sunday, 24 August 2014 Have eaten at Pho Pasteur, 709 George St Haymarket a number of times over the years with no problem. However on Sunday, 24 August 2014 we ordered two rare beef pho and seafood spring rolls. I was violently ill a number of hours later and my wife is still sick and in pain on Wednesday, 27 August 2014. Our GP Doctor confirms food poisoning. I am lodging a complaint with the City of Sydney Council. I note their Bankstown location has been name and shamed by NSW Government Food Authority on more than one occasion - search for yourself to see.

Posted on Thu 28 Aug 2014 00:05:20

Aaron said:

the food is not bad but the waiters are extremely rude. especially,
towards women. the older guy had bumped into a girl's chair and simply
told her to move the chair instead of saying sorry. and that girl was
skinny.